


P R O J E C T I O N S

by Heroesincolor



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Zutara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:06:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8869792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heroesincolor/pseuds/Heroesincolor
Summary: Eleven years after the defeat of the FireLord, peace has spread over the entire world because of the friendship between FireLord Zuko and Avatar Aang. However, when a sickness infects the FireLord, the infamous Southern Waterbender, Katara, is sent to try to find somehow to cure her sick friend, and when the projections begin, Zuko's world becomes the one he once knew all over again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!! This is my first publishing of PROJECTIONS, and it originally was meant to be a longer fanfic, however I'm a bit hesitant to spread it out if a shorter piece will work. If you enjoyed this, let me know what you think about making it longer or keeping it as it is, thank you!

“Has his condition improved any?” An aging man with cracks in his skin composed of smile lines and filled with cheer whispered to a twenty-five year old woman who stood as proud as the birth of hurricame, and she shook her head, the loops in her hair ruffling in the breeze of the Fire Nation Palace courtyard.

“The dreams are only getting worse, and he wants to move a troop of firebenders into the Earth Kingdom to restore Ba Sing Se to its former glory when Azula took it years ago.” With a sigh, Katara looked down towards a milky pond, her slim hands tossing pieces of torn bread to the turtleducks - with a mother who let her children eat first before consuming the scraps and continuing along the pond, expectantly blinking towards the man beside her.

“What my nephew talks about is treason, and if the Avatar were to find out-”

The Southern Waterbender quickly cut off Iroh, the blue in her eyes hardening until they became meteorite steel, “Aang won’t find out. He’ll be torn between his duty to stop Zuko and the friendship they have. Zuko is only sick, all we need is to find a cure or some way to heal him.”

“You have taken good care of him Katara, the Fire Nation and I owe you very much.” With a smile bursting full of the happiness only an older man who has seen the world restored could have, he placed a calloused and scarred hand on the girl’s shoulder, “Even with what it has cost you.”

Katara’s shoes immediately felt heavier, and for a moment, she was convinced she was sinking into the mud, consumed by the lies and the deceit she had been consumed inttp like weeds overtaking her garden of morals.

To lie and keep information from the Avatar was one thing.

But to lie to your husband was another.

“Aang will understand once we stop this sickness, and then it’ll be over.” As though she had been ensuring herself, she nodded while a voice called out from the courtyard.

“Katara!”

In a swift movement, with the reflexes of only a bender, her eyes came to rest on Zuko, who came slumping forward, the in the boyish manner of one who had been scolded and held suspicion of the everyone around him.

“Zuko,” Iroh’s tone filled with hope as he turned to his nephew, immediately growing expressionless as Zuko rose his hands, flames dancing from his knuckles.

“I-it’s you!” His eyes grew wide with fear, his feet carrying him back until he remembered Katara, and reached out with one hand to grab her arm, tugging her to his side, “Stay away from us! I told you already!”

“Zuko,” With a voice as calm as the whispers of a sea breeze, Katara placed a hand on his shoulder, expecting the tension in his shoulders to grow soft, “Why don’t we leave him alone and go inside?”

And for the first time in the weeks the waterbender has spent in the Fire Nation, the Firelord turned to her which such a look of disgust, as though she were nothing but the young waterbender who had been shielding the Avatar from him back when they were teenagers. 

“You’re siding with him Katara?” Anger flooded his voice as the rabid dog the disease brought began to growl in the back of his throat, clawing his way into the man’s eyes, “Of all people? My father!? THE ONE WHO DID THIS TO ME!” 

At his yell, he jabbed his thumb towards the scar that covered from the inner of the left side of his nose to the entirety of his ear. The scar had terrified Katara in the days of him hunting her and her brother, but over time, she grew to see it as a piece of him. As though his father had attempted to break him by ripping away a piece of identity, and Zuko stitched it together until he had a scar of the person he had become.

But now an anger she had never seen rose into his honeycomb eyes, reminding her that the scar had been the consequence of a Fire Bender’s fury.

“Iroh, get out of here.” Maintaining her calm and quiet tone, she nodded towards the old man, who opened his mouth in protest, but one sharp look caused him to nod. As he retreated around the pond, Zuko’s eyes followed him, and Katara stepped in front of him, her hands risen in the air in the universal sign for surrender, “It’s just you and me, Zuko. No more evil Firelord, no more uncle, no Avatar.”

Katara immediately regretted mentioning Aang.

“The Avatar?” His nostrils flared, the temperature of the air around him growing scalding as the flames crept up from his fingertips, licking and dancing around his wrist like a fiery bracelet of judgement, “You’re with him too? HE HAS WHAT I NEED!”

“Zuko. I-”

Before she could finish, he had risen his arm and sent a bundle of flames shooting towards her, making the blue of her eyes reflect the sun.

And in an instant, her own arm sliced through the air, bringing water from the pond to create a shield in the shape of a wave, evaporating into steam once the fire came in contact.

Tears brimmed the corners of her eyes.

Not in sadness.

Not in weakness.

But to know that Zuko, when his fury had drained and the disease left him exhausted and bedridden for another week, would have to face that he had tried to attack her. That her words, that their friendship, and the journeys they shared - the constant dance between the moon and the sun - hadn’t been enough to overtake the projections. When he woke up the next morning, he would wake up with an ache deep in the marrow of his bones and dwelling in his heart in knowing that it had not been enough, that the love of friendship had not been enough - that she was nothing special, she wasn’t an exception to anyone, he had turned on her just as easily as he had turned on his uncle and his own wife.

And in another instant, Katara realized that it wasn’t Zuko who would have to wake up with this the next morning. He would wake up next to his wife as he should, and she would wake up far from her husband to help a man she had once dreamt of tearing limb from limb until she could overflow the water in his heart until it burst.

But in this instant, the fleeting instance that she had to defend herself, her heart shattered in a way that paralleled when the Fire Nation ripped her mother from her very arms. 

“Zuko,” She meant for it to be a scream, for it to be a cry of desperation, but it was little more than a whisper as his fist came jabbing towards her, flames exploding from the skin between his index and middle and middle and ring fingers.

Katara thought her life would flash before her eyes - that she would relive every moment from her days as a toddler to the wedding day that the entire world had celebrated but her. 

Instead, she saw the fury of thousands of dragons, their white teeth clashing against the night sky as they swirled around humans, teaching them of the miracles of the fire - and the humans taking it and destroying beauty. Burning and raving cities until nothing but ash and bricks remained.

She became the dust.  
She became the result of the fury of a fire bender.


End file.
